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Thursday, June 9, 2016

Les Miserables: What They Were Really Thinking

All accurate quotations taken from the Complete Symphonic Recording libretto, aka The Whole Doggone Thing (The Actual Musical, That Is). All inaccurate mumbo-jumbo is from mine own weird brain. Screencaps are from the movie, because it's just easier to find those. This juxtaposition may be jarring to purists. Then again, my whole blog is probably jarring to purists, so if you're a purist you may wish to take your business elsewhere.

Full disclaimer: rampant irreverence shown to a very sad and moving story, all in good fun. Also completely unashamed digs at big-name movie stars' singing. Sorry not sorry. And no copyright infringement intended, even though I don't own any of this (obviously.) Yada yada.

Let us proceed.

Convict: When I get free, you won't see me here for dust!
Other convict: What is that even supposed to mean? Personally, when I get free you won't see me here for a MILLION DOLLARS, if I knew what a dollar was, which I don't, living in barely-post-revolutionary-France.

Javert: You robbed a HOUSE!
Valjean: I broke a window-pane!
Javert: That's still robbing a house, man. The window was IN the house.

Javert: You will starve again unless you learn the meaning of the law.
Valjean: I know the meaning of those 19 years a slave of the law.
Javert: I didn't ask you if you knew the meaning of those 19 years, I asked you if you knew the meaning of THE LAW. Learn to listen, 246-whatever-your-name-is.

Valjean: I drink from the pool, how clean the taste.
(I have no response for this, just thought all y'all needed to see this picture.)

Valjean: When they chained me and left me for dead, just for stealing a mouthful of bread.
Javert (in the distance): And robbing a house, did you forget the house already?

Javert: What is this fighting all about, will someone tear these two apart! This is a factory, not a circus!
Foreman: I don't know what kind of circuses you've been to, Valjean, but if the main entertainment there is women fighting, I think you are going to some pretty third-rate circuses.

Valjean: Your face is not a face I would forget.
Javert: I feel like the implication of this remark is very hurtful but I am not exactly sure how or why.

Javert: Tell me quickly, what's the story? Who saw what, and why and where? Let him give a full description....
Beggars: Well if you would shut up for ten seconds together, maybe some of us could get a word in edgewise, JAVERT.

[tries to expunge any and all singing from that confession scene between Javert and Valjean in the movie]

Valjean: Hush now, do not be afraid of me, don't hide. Show me where you live.
Cosette: The saddest thing about my neglected childhood is that no one told me not to talk to strangers like you, Creepy Man Who Just Showed Up in the Woods and Asked For All My Personal Information.

Valjean: Thank you both for Cosette. It won't take you too long to forget.
Thenardier: JUST FOR THAT I'M GOING TO HANG ONTO THIS MEMORY FOR AT LEAST ANOTHER EIGHT YEARS, HOW DO YOU LIKE THEM APPLES, CONVICT.

Madame Thenardier: Here [the students] come slumming once again. Our Eponine would kiss their feet, she never had a scrap of brain.
Eponine: Yeah, but according to two songs ago I'm really good at wearing little blue hats, or did you forget that Mom...

Eponine: I like the way you grow your hair...
Marius: Do you really, Eponine? Do you like how I grow it? Or do you just like the way I cut and style it? Because the growing is actually done pretty involuntarily and I do not actually have any say in how it's done. See, this is the kind of thing you would find in a book, if you read books, a sad lack in your education which I am apparently bent on rubbing in your face.

Marius: A ghost you say, a ghost maybe, she was just like a ghost to me.
Enjolras: Just to be clear, you actually like this girl or you're saying she scared you out of your skin?

Enjolras: Is this simply a game for a rich young boy to play?
Grantaire: Obviously not, Enjolras, have you MET most of us? Marius hasn't eaten in, like, a month.

Enjolras: Marius, you're no longer a child--
Marius: Enjolras you are THREE years older than me, will you please CHILL with the ageism there. I am VERY mature.

Marius: Cosette, I don't know what to say.
Cosette: Then make no sound.
Marius: I am lost!
Cosette: I LITERALLY JUST TOLD YOU TO MAKE NO SOUND.

Valjean: Must be Javert! He's found my cover at last! I've got to get Cosette away before they return!
Cosette: Are you talking to me or to someone unknown person on the other side of that camera? Dad? And who's "they" and who's Javert and WHAT IS GOING ON AND WHAT DO YOU MEAN WE'RE LEAVING, I HAVE A BOYFRIEND NOW.

Barricade Boys: One day to a new beginning, raise the flag of freedom high! Every man will be a king...
Combeferre: You realize that if everyone's a king, then no one's a king, right? Right?

Eponine: I've got you worried now, I have - that shows you like me quite a lot!
Marius: There is a way that you can help! You are the answer to a prayer!
Eponine: ...When did I say I wanted to help? I said I wanted you to LIKE ME, Marius, how hard is that to understand- sheesh, you are REALLY lucky you're so cute.

Eponine: The trees are bare and everywhere the streets are full of strangers!
Stranger: Okay, first of all I am the ONE SOLE PERSON on this street right now, kiddo, and also, if the streets WERE full of strangers, you technically wouldn't be on your own. Think about it.

Javert: What's the difference, die a schoolboy, die a policeman, die a spy?
Courfeyrac: If there really genuinely isn't any difference why do we all have to be schoolboys? I for one would rather be a spy. It sounds cool.

Eponine: Don't you fret, M'sieur Marius, I don't feel any pain. A little fall of rain can hardly hurt me now.
Marius: I'm not concerned about the rain hurting you, Eponine, I'm concerned about the MASSIVE GUNSHOT WOUND IN YOUR RIBCAGE RIGHT NOW.

Enjolras: For your presence of mind, for the deed you have done, I will thank you M'sieur when our battle is won.
Valjean: Give me no thanks m'sieur, there's something you can do--
Enjolras: I literally just told you I wasn't giving you thanks yet so you DON'T NEED TO STOP ME.

Javert: Once a thief, forever a thief! What you want you always steal! You would trade your life for mine?
Valjean: The very definition of a trade is swapping one thing for another, which is the exact opposite of stealing, so your logic is not only mean and rude, it is FLAWED, Javert. FLAWED.

Marius: Would you weep, Cosette, for me?
Valjean: THAT'S HIM THAT'S THE ONE. Okay be cool. BE COOL.

Valjean: He's like the son I might have known, if God had granted me a son.
Cosette (back at the ranch): I HEARD THAT.
Creepy eye overseeing Valjean in the movie: PLEASE STOP "SINGING."

Thenardier: And only the moon shines down... the harvest moon shines down...
Dead guy in the sewer: Bro, it's JUNE, do you even know what a harvest moon is.

Javert: My heart is stone and still it trembles!
Random bird: Do you really think the two are mutually exclusive? Have you ever heard of an earthquake?
Other random bird: Also please stop "singing."

Valjean: I never told Cosette, she had enough of tears
Marius: Do you think I haven't had enough of tears, dude? In case you haven't noticed, ALL MY FRIENDS ARE DEAD.

Marius: Whatever I tell my beloved Cosette she will never believe.
Valjean: Yeah, good luck with making that marriage work, kid.

Marius: When I look at you, I remember Eponine.
Eponine (from heaven): Gee, thanks, buddy, I was trying to get some distance there.

Marius: Cosette, your father is a saint. When they wounded me he took me from the barricade, carried like a babe...
Cosette: This is not the time or the place, but at some point the two of us need to very carefully review How One Carries a Baby, because "through the sewers slung across your back" is Not It.

All the Dead People: Do you hear the people sing, lost in the valley of the night?
All the Weeping Audience: That's a depressing way of putting it when you think too hard about it.
Me, Writing This: Okay, I got nothing, that ending just Gets You Right There. Can't joke, I'm out.

19 comments:

Haha, thus is just brilliant! :D I must admit, I love the Les Miserables movie but the singing is definitely toe-curlingly bad at times. I get the effect that the director was going for, but I don't know that live singing was the best choice after all...

Everybody seems to talk about Hugh Jackman singing previously. Just because he has and can does not mean he should. And Russell Crowe. My sisters and I laughed through this entire movie. And made fun of poor Marius's melodramatic/creepy faces and Eponine's obnoxious third-wheeling. I want to see a state version in which EVERYONE (not just a few) can sing well before I can really feel like I can understand the musical.

Oh, this is terribly funny... in two ways. I feel terrible for laughing at such a not funny kind of musical that I love so dearly, but I'm afraid you've just hit the nail on the head. ;) As a matter of fact, several of these I have thought of myself!

I forgive you for poking fun at my favourite musical. You just did it too well. ;)

About Me

I'm really Amy, but I go by Miss Dashwood in the blogging world-- you can call me either or both. Or neither. Whatever floats your boat. I'm an old-fashioned sort of person who enjoys 21st-century plumbing and heating, does not read half as much as she wishes to, spends too much time on the Internet and really, really likes tea. I'd offer you some, but... well, you're on that side of the computer screen, and I'm on this.